Maddocks: President moves to ease worries about NSA with new ad campaign

President Obama said yesterday he hopes a new multi-trillion-dollar White House ad campaign will ease the public’s concern with the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices and reassure Americans that their privacy is not being violated.

President Obama said yesterday he hopes a new multi-trillion-dollar White House ad campaign will ease the public’s concern with the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices and reassure Americans that their privacy is not being violated.

"This is a conversation we need to have in this country, and now, thanks to this extraordinary ad campaign, I think we are finally ready to have it," the president said.

The campaign, described as the largest in the government’s history, with a budget estimated at more than $2 trillion, will include work from six top ad agencies and the airing of the first-ever Super Bowl commercial from the White House. Mr. Obama told reporters this week that the ads may feature a caveman, or some type of animal, or the Kardashian family, or possibly all the above.

"We want to have some fun with this," Mr. Obama said, "but at the same time we want people to keep in mind that this is deadly serious business."

The president noted that "however creative we get" the goal of the campaign is to bring more openness to the NSA’s personality and brand it as America’s mostly trustworthy partner.

"The important thing is get the information to the American people without the filter of the media or top secret documents," Mr. Obama said. "Whether that means it is coming from one of the Kardashians or a talking animal, well, that’s a decision for our ad agencies."

In addition to the Super Bowl spot, there will be other television commercials, print and online ads, promotions, public relations efforts, events, a partnership with security cult figures John Poindexter, a presence in social media and elaborate digital demonstrations in real time of the NSA’s "mind- and law-bending" new programs – all designed, the president said, to offer the government’s most detailed legal justification yet for domestic spying.

The spending will be the most ever "by a long shot" on a campaign to promote the work of a spy agency, said Mr. Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney.

Critics of the electronic spying brought to light by the former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden’s leaks said the president’s commercial approach was insufficient. Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that a program that collects records of every domestic phone call must be shut down, describing Mr. Obama’s plans for a multi-trillion-dollar ad campaign as "too little too late.".

But a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, urged Mr. Obama not to let such criticism undermine the marketing campaign or "compromise its operational integrity."

"That must be the president’s red line, and he must enforce it," said the spokesman. "Our priority should continue to be - and must be - saving face."

Page 2 of 2 - Mr. Boehner, according to his spokesman, favors using a caveman character in the commercials, a choice that appears to put him at odds with many members in his party, who seem to prefer a Bigfoot-like character dubbed "Sesquestch" who stamps out terrorism and bloated government programs with equal ferocity.

Mr. Obama said he didn’t want to get bogged down in the particulars of the surveillance program marketing blitz.

The goal in this instance, he said, is for "a hugely impactful campaign," and if that means using Sesquestch, the president expressed confidence that the two sides would succeed in finding a middle ground that is agreeable to Democrats, Republicans, and even Kardashians.

The ad campaign for the NSA’s programs, according to Mr. Obama, will carry the theme "Keep collecting," in a nod to the psychographics of the powerful intelligence agency’s can-do appeal. Some commercials will use the phrase "Built to keep us collecting."

People who intercept emails and phone metadata are "doers, achievers, people of action," the president said. "They are about getting things done, success-oriented, multitasking and hyperconnected. We think that is a theme that will resonate with the public."

Mr. Obama said he wanted to begin holding actor auditions for the commercials before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as early as next month, and Mr. Boehner and Senator Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, acknowledged in a joint statement that party brinksmanship over the debt ceiling and the threat of a government shutdown might have to be put off altogether to accommodate plans for the new ad campaign.

The president said he hoped the first cycle of commercials will begin airing nationwide by Thanksgiving and that plans for the full campaign will be leaked to the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers a day or two earlier.

"As much as we are putting our faith in the ad people," Mr. Obama said, "experience tells us that a leak is still the best way to get the message out there."

Philip Maddocks writes a weekly satirical column. He can be reached at pmaddocks@wickedlocal.com.